More Google Chrome security vulnerabilities

minstrel Illustrious Member

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#1

Google Chrome vulnerabilities starting to pile up
by Ryan Naraine
September 5th, 2008

Security vulnerabilities in the new Google Chrome browser are beginning to pile up.

Following our coverage of the carpet bombing combo threat and denial-of-service crashes, several readers have sent pointers to Chrome exploit code floating around the Web:

First up is an automatic file download bug found by researchers in the Ukraine. The proof-of-concept exploits (there are three) drop an executable (hack.exe) in the default download directory without any intermediate warning.

Vietnamese research outfit SVRT-Bkis has published demo exploits for what is described as a critical buffer overflow that could lead to remote code execution attacks. â€œThe vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error when handling the â€œSaveAsâ€ function. On saving a malicious page with an overly long title (<title> tag in HTML), the program causes a stack-based overflow and makes it possible for attackers to execute arbitrary code on usersâ€™ systems,â€ the group said. An attack scenario would require some form of social engineering.

Vulnerability researcher Robert â€˜RSnakeâ€™ Hansen is very harsh in his response to Googleâ€™s decision to build its own browser:

If you build a browser in isolation, you donâ€™t get the benefits and knowledge of the smart people who have come before you. Yes, Googleâ€™s browser is open source, like Firefox. But even Firefox came from Netscape, which had tons of background in the browser world, and Mozilla, too, has learned from a mistake or two. It is easy to call into question Googleâ€™s ability to build a safe browser given its rather poor track record in other areas of security. And no, you shouldnâ€™t download it â€” not if you care about your security. So, like cryptography, you shouldnâ€™t build a browser unless you really, really know what youâ€™re doing
.
ModSecurityâ€™s Ivan Ristic has a different reaction to the news of Google Chrome security hiccups:

The whole point of having a public beta release is expose a product to a wide audience and deal with the discovered problems prior to a stable release. The existence of security issues in Chrome is in line with our current inability to develop software free from security issues. Thus, people should not be distracted by the small problems that are now discovered. We should be looking at the big picture instead. Chrome is a browser thatâ€™s been designed from the ground up with security in mind. Thatâ€™s bound to have a positive impact. Weâ€™ll know more about the impact once the details of its architecture surface.
Ristic however called on Google to stop abusing the â€œbetaâ€ tag because it unacceptably blurs the line between beta and stable. â€œHow else are users going to be able to judge what is acceptable for production use and what isnâ€™t?â€

UPDATE: Googleâ€™s PR team e-mailed the following statement:

â€œWe became aware of this vulnerability last night and began working on a fix immediately. We expect to release the fix soon through an automated update to the browser, so users will not have to take any action to be protected. As always, Google asks researchers to practice responsible disclosure, so potential vulnerabilities can be evaluated and fixed before they become public and before users are subjected to unnecessary risk. Security bugs for Google Chrome can be filed at code.google.com/p/chromium.â€œ
Click to expand...

minstrel, Sep 9, 2008 IP

Divisive Cottonwood Peon

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#2

They seem to be popping up all over the place.

Scroll down this hackers site and you'll many vulnerabilities posted up

http://www.milw0rm.com/

Divisive Cottonwood, Sep 9, 2008 IP

lycos Well-Known Member

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#3

Wow...never thought that the flaws could be so obvious and also serious especially this is something developed by the big "G". Nevertheless, this is still in its early beta stage.

lycos, Sep 9, 2008 IP

TheGoku Banned

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#4

Google should release a better version of this if they want to compete with IE8 or Firefox.

TheGoku, Sep 9, 2008 IP

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More Google Chrome security vulnerabilities

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